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Turner Construction protests ranking for DD middle school PDF Print E-mail
County News
Friday, 15 April 2011 11:39

By Marvin G. Cortner
Editor
Turner Construction Company Monday filed a written protest with the Osceola County School District over the selection of the construction manager at risk for the $15.5 million DD middle school.
A national company with a regional construction office in Orlando, Turner Construction was ranked second for the project, behind Welbro Quinn Constructors-A Joint Venture. Welbro Quinn Constructors is a relatively recent partnership between Welbro Building Corporation, which has its corporate offices in Maitland and an operational office in Tennessee, and local contractor Danny Quinn.
Comprised mostly of school administrators and staff along with one appointee from the community, a selection committee scored and ranked four short-listed firms after their formal presentations March 30. Welbro-Quinn received 3,630 points in the final ranking; Turner Construction received 3,360.
In the protest, Turner Construction Vice President/General Manager Scott Skidelsky states that selection committee member Mark Hunt, who is director of the Career and Technical Education Department for the district, made a disclosure to the entire selection committee at the conclusion of Turner Construction’s interview that presented the appearance that it had done something improper in contacting Hunt the day before presentations. Skidelsky stated there was no contact with Hunt about the solicitation.
“As opposed to reviewing and reporting this immediately to the Purchasing Director and/or the SDOC (School District)  legal counsel, the information was presented in a manner that was detrimental to Turner during the selection process,” the protest states. “The impact of these discussions was clearly negative and a member of the selection committee later described that they were influenced by the information disclosed. It was clarified after the score sheets were filled out that no employee of Turner approached or discussed anything with Mark Hunt during this solicitation.”
Skidelsky goes on to state that upon conclusion of the deliberations and submission of the scoring by each selection committee member, Hunt revealed additional information that a second individual approached him to discuss the project. Instead of explaining all of the details of this conversation, Hunt only presented information that was detrimental to Turner.
Turner officials further state that full disclosure of the entire conversation with the other individual was not made and that the other person referenced by Hunt was an individual that is listed as an owner involved in Welbro Quinn.
“The impact of these discussions was clearly negative and a member of the selection committee later described that they were influenced by the information disclosed,” Skidelsky stated.
The protest also states that based on “additional information recently disclosed,” there appears that “additional conflicts may have existed between the selected firm and selection committee member(s).”
Turner Construction has requested additional information from the School District and has reserved its right to include those items in the protest.
According to information previously provided to the News-Gazette, that additional conflict of interest could be between selection committee member Racquel L. Schroeder, the only community appointee to the committee, and Quinn. Schroeder, a Realtor with Goodwin Realty and Associates in Kissimmee, over the last few years has sold property for Quinn.
The School Board has not yet voted to proceed with negotiations for a contract with Welbro Quinn for the new school, which would be built along Pleasant Hill Road. Construction manager at risk firms are paid a percentage of the contract value for overseeing a project.
Dana Schafer, school district spokeswoman, on Tuesday said a hearing date for the protest has not been set and that the district had no comment on at this time.
 

COMMENTS_LIST_HEADER  

 
+3 #2 nana 2013-05-19 00:36
Marvin, Turner Construction is a waste of money. They have gone over budget with each job they have had.

Quinn and Schroeder's working relationship is in the past.

If they are using that for an excuse, they will get nowhere. Every construction company and realtor in the county would not be able to do business with the county.
 
 
-1 #1 ctpolitico 2013-05-19 00:36
This is quite a hack job Marvin. The School District nor the Construction firms can offer information about this process until the Board votes on it. So the headline should be "Marvin prints erroneous information from dubious sources."
 

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